Call for stronger action on sex traffic

Ministers are under growing pressure to crack down on sex traffickers following the Sunday Telegraph's investigations exposing the brutal trade.

A number of MPs and charities are calling for tougher laws to stop the traffickers and for men who have sex with the victims to face rape charges. They want Britain to sign the European Convention Against Trafficking. This would allow victims to stay in Britain for six months to recover from their ordeal and prepare to give evidence against traffickers.

Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP, praised police successes such as last week's jailing of five Albanian sex traffickers from west London for a total of 63 years for forcing young eastern European women to work in brothels. But he said this was the "tip of the iceberg", adding: "The Government is doing nowhere near enough."

Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, said: "People would be appalled to know that many victims are deported and put at serious risk of re-trafficking. The Government should sign the convention immediately."

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Up to 6,000 women are said to have been brought to Britain and forced into the sex trade in the past few years. The Sunday Telegraph has revealed how girls can be bought in eastern Europe for as little as £1,400, how they are beaten and raped and kept in cellars.

Paul Goggins, the Home Office minister, said the Government had not ruled out signing the trafficking convention, but wanted to "balance protection for the victims with tight rules on immigration".

He said existing laws allowed officers to charge with rape men who had sex with women forced into prostitution. "We want the police to arrest these men wherever and whenever they have evidence."

On Friday, European Union ministers agreed to implement a plan to fight people trafficking.